Examples of Alt-Texts
As to 1 June 2025 all illustrations published in open-access books will have to be provided with alt-texts, i.e. short descriptions of the contents of the illustration different from the captions, which are meant to help people with seeing disabilities to grasp what the illustration represents.
Descriptions should be short and accurate. The authors of the articles are best placed to provide these descriptions, in the form of a list in a document, with the figure numbers.
Below are a few examples of alt-texts for SMC volumes
1 Maps
SMC 37, p. 32
Fig. 1: Map showing the main sites where cuneiform tablets have been found, prepared by Xavier Faivre and Martin Sauvage, and translated from Lion and Michel 2016, 9.
Fig. 1 Alt text: The map shows all the places where cuneiform tablets were found from Anatolia to Mesopotamia.
2 Photographs of sites, excavations…
SMC 37, p. 35
Fig. 2: Tablets found in situ in the house of Šalim-Aššur excavated in 1994 in the lower town of Kültepe, ancient Kaneš. © Kültepe Archaeological Archives.
Fig. 2 Alt text: The photograph shows an archaeological excavation; cuneiform tablets were found on the ground of a house in the lower town of Kültepe.
3 Inscribed objects (without texts)
SMC 37, pp. 78
Fig. 2: Sample bone tags from Tomb U-j at Abydos. Naqada IIIA, c. 3200 BCE.Courtesy Deut-sches Archäologisches Institut, Abteilung Kairo.
Fig. 2 Alt text: The illustration shows miniature signs carved into rectangular bone nails. Further explanations can be found in the main text.
4 Manuscripts or inscriptions (with texts)
SMC 38, p. 237
Fig. 1: A Siamese Grantha manuscript from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, original-ly from Thailand, between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries; © Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. siam 99, fols 5r–6r.
Fig. 1 Alt text: A photograph of two folios of the Siamese Grantha pothi manuscript kept in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich (writing in white against a black background).